Beauty the Bald Eagle to Receive a New Beak

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Beauty, a 7-year old bald eagle is lucky to be alive. The 15-pound eagle was found in Alaska a few years ago, with its upper beak completely destroyed by a gunshot. Without a full beak, the poor bird was having a hard time cutting or grasping food or even drinking water.

She was taken to a bird care center in Anchorage, Alaska where the caretakers hand-fed her and hoped that her beak would start growing back.

When that did not happen, she was moved to a Raptor Recovery center in Idaho, under the care of biologist Jane Fink Cantwell. While talking to an engineer about Beauty's problem, Jane came up with a brilliant idea. How about building an artificial beak for Beauty?

Jane and a number of volunteers, which include the engineer, a veterinarian, a dentist and other experts, set about this never done before task. The fact the Beauty only needs a part of her beak and not the whole beak, made their endeavor even more difficult. However, after almost two years and several different molds, they think they finally have a beak that will work.

The new beak will be glued onto Beauty next month. If the glue does not work, the beak will have to be screwed into Beauty's mouth. Even if the beak works, Beauty will never be released in the wild again because she will still not be able to cut and tear up her food.

It will however, make her more independent so that she can pick up food and drink water more easily. Best of all, the seven-year old bird may even live up to the ripe age of 50 in captivity. We sure hope Beauty's bionic beak works! What do you think - be sure to add your comments below.

Sources: 4-40.com,CNN, Google News

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142 Comments
  • unknown_user14
    unknown_user14over 2 years
    That's sad...I hope Beauty is living the life with her new beak!
    • adroit_avimimus
      adroit_avimimusover 2 years
      Hoping the new beak is well! Beauty must be thriving right now! Munching on some meat!
      • skoobidoop
        skoobidoopalmost 4 years
        Hi again so if someone knows how Beauty looks right now tell me
        • skoobidoop
          skoobidoopabout 4 years
          I have 2 theory’s: Beauty was searching for food and then a human found her, he was so surprised that he accidentally shot her upper beak, he ran so fast he was too scared to go to jail. Theory 2: A human was looking for a new pet eagle since the other has died, he couldn’t find anything except for a eagle, looking for food, he thought the eagle was dangerous and accidentally shot the upper beak then ran to find another eagle.
          • skoobidoop
            skoobidoopabout 4 years
            I’m just glad I’m not the eagle with no upper beak, but that’s sad.. I wonder if Beauty fainted after she got upper beak gone..
            • skoobidoop
              skoobidoopabout 4 years
              I feel bad! Why would someone do such a thing to the main bird who is very popular! If I were the person who shot her I would regret this and the person who did should have too! Even if this is old, everyone should support bald eagles for now on. Plus they almost got instinct in England! Just why? It’s wrong to go against the law! That person who shot Beauty, must be in jail by now. I sure hope she is still alive in 2020! Bald Eagles for the life! 🦅 🦅 🦅 🦅 🦅 🦅
              • bangarangwolf
                bangarangwolfover 4 years
                I hope the person who shot her will be very hurt some day
                • Akistyanaover 5 years
                  why this is sad becaues you are crying about this
                  • catzluvdonutzalmost 6 years
                    saaaaad whaaaa the person who shot her better be sorry
                    • jimmy nioutronabout 6 years
                      this is cool but sad